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Abhishek, a small-time businessman – he runs a company called Leaps and Bounds – who made it big by earning government contracts to paint Kolkata blue and white, claimed on a social networking site that the students’ agitation is the result of a “crackdown against things like booze, weed and charas on the JU campus.” Mamata’s nephew has been accused by CPM’s Gautam Deb of running Ponzi schemes similar to the ones that the Saradha Group floated to defraud small depositors.

Abhishek’s comments come on a day when the Trinamool Congress took out a massive counter-procession as a response to the well-attended JU students’ rally which attracted others of their community from Kolkata’s elite educational institutions, including Presidency University and St. Xavier’s college, as well as teachers from other parts of the state.

The massive outpouring of anger on Kolkata’s streets was to express solidarity with the JU students who took the brunt of the September 17 repressive measures by the police who were instructed by the JU vice-chancellor Abhijit Chakrabarti to quell the protest on campus.

Abhishek’s comments match the vice-chancellor’s language, indicating that a concerted effort is now being made to discredit the JU students’ movement that is seeking Chakrabarti’s resignation for not adequately pursuing a sexual harassment case.

Chief minister Mamata Banerjee has now buckled under the students’ pressure and ordered a fresh probe into the sexual harassment case. Regardless of the probe committee’s results, what is certain is that Mamata’s image has taken a beating as the JU students’ movement has gained in strength.

DISCLAIMER : Views expressed above are the author's own.

Blog

Please do not be misled by the blog name. The web journal will feature articles and thoughts not just on Bengal, which is the author's home state, but an eclectic mix of the exciting and the mundane, the serious and the not-so-serious: internal security, violent conflict, the intelligence and investigating agencies (not everyday crime), the bureaucracy, occasional political tracts and issues of social and cultural concern.

Author

A hardcore reporter by training, he is now transitioning to another level in journalism -- the analytical world of the edit page at The Times of India. He graduated from the erstwhile Presidency College, Calcutta, before taking a Master's degree in History from Delhi University. After rebelling against his father, he joined journalism, but 15 years into the profession, he thought he should get his basics right. He enrolled at Brandeis University, Massachusetts, where he obtained an MA in Coexistence and Conflict Resolution. For reasons personal, his dreams of completing a doctorate in Comparative Politics remained unfulfilled. He is interested in investigative reporting, chasing spooks, covering conflicts and approaching social science issues from an analytic perspective.

A hardcore reporter by training, he is now transitioning to another level in journalism -- the analytical world of the edit page at The Times of India. He g. . .

Blog

Please do not be misled by the blog name. The web journal will feature articles and thoughts not just on Bengal, which is the author's home state, but an eclectic mix of the exciting and the mundane, the serious and the not-so-serious: internal security, violent conflict, the intelligence and investigating agencies (not everyday crime), the bureaucracy, occasional political tracts and issues of social and cultural concern.

Author

A hardcore reporter by training, he is now transitioning to another level in journalism -- the analytical world of the edit page at The Times of India. He graduated from the erstwhile Presidency College, Calcutta, before taking a Master's degree in History from Delhi University. After rebelling against his father, he joined journalism, but 15 years into the profession, he thought he should get his basics right. He enrolled at Brandeis University, Massachusetts, where he obtained an MA in Coexistence and Conflict Resolution. For reasons personal, his dreams of completing a doctorate in Comparative Politics remained unfulfilled. He is interested in investigative reporting, chasing spooks, covering conflicts and approaching social science issues from an analytic perspective.

A hardcore reporter by training, he is now transitioning to another level in journalism -- the analytical world of the edit page at The Times of India. He g. . .